


In Which Instincts Kick In Part 2

by OlwenDylluan



Series: It Cannot Be Taken From You [15]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Father-daughter bonding time, Gen, Growing Up is Hard, Kid Fic, does it still count as kidfic if kids are snakes but so is one of the parents?, kedreeva’s wiggleverse, parenting, parenting is hard, snabies!omens, snek!babies, wiggleverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:08:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25447375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OlwenDylluan/pseuds/OlwenDylluan
Summary: Angelica tries to sort out her feelings about the Incident, with Crowley’s support.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: It Cannot Be Taken From You [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1602421
Comments: 22
Kudos: 104
Collections: Wiggleverse





	In Which Instincts Kick In Part 2

**Author's Note:**

> No tiny creatures are consumed in this part! You’re safe!
> 
> If you skipped the first part because of the CW, you can absolutely read this. You can figure out what happened quite easily.

“Anything could have happened!” Aziraphale said, absently moving his hands in a worried washing motion as he paced. Crowley scoffed, waving his whiskey broadly. 

“Come off it, angel. I was right there, and she very sensibly called for me. I had it under control.”

“But what if she’d struck at something bigger?” Aziraphale demanded, whirling around. “What if it had fought back? They’re very delicate, snakes, they can be damaged by prey so easily, and we’ve always fed them euthanized mice, they have no experience with live prey--”

Crowley let his head fall back on the back of the sofa.

“I _am_ a bloody snake, angel. You don’t have to educate me.”

“Evidently I _do_ ,” Aziraphale said, “because I don’t feel that you’re taking this very seriously.”

Crowley groaned.

“Live prey caught in the wild can carry all sorts of parasites and infections. She could get _ill_ , Crowley.”

“Look, I've already got a plan, all right? I told her we’d work on handling instinct and not letting it get the better of her. You micromanage, angel, and it’s irritating.”

“She’s our daughter, Crowley!”

“Yeah,” he said, sitting up again. “Exactly. She’s _our_ daughter. I’m the snake. Let _me_ teach her, yeah?”

When Angelica awoke, all her siblings were in her room, peering at her through the terrarium glass.

_Gnng_ , she said groggily.

_What was it like?_ Anthony said, coming right up to plaster his face against the glass. _Did it wriggle? Did it taste different?_

_Let her wake up properly,_ Rosa admonished from where she was coiled on the bed.

_Did it taste like dirt?_ Clem said anxiously. _Azirafather always puts our mice on plates_.

Angelica slowly stretched this way and that, then took a long drink of water. When she felt more like herself, she reached up to the edge of the terrarium and flowed out.

_It wiggled_ , she said. _But I kind of didn’t have time to notice. I think… I think its neck broke when I got there. Right away_.

The others all looked at her with suitably awed expressions. Clem’s was a little more on the horrified side.

_How do you feel?_ Datura said.

Angelica weighed the truth--sort of freaked out-- against being cool.

_Normal_ , she said, and slithered past her siblings.

“Good rest?” Crowley asked as Angelica came up to him, winding through the grass. He was sorting through clay pots outside the greenhouse.

_Yes. Thank you._ She rested her head on his foot. He reached down to touch light fingers to her neck, then went back to brushing old dirt out of the pots and stacking them. She moved to where one lay on its side and slid into the dim coolness inside. _Father?_ she said after a few minutes.

“Yep.”

_... I don’t know,_ she said after a pause.

Crowley brushed off his hands and crouched down to look into the pot.

“Out of sorts?” he said. Angelica nodded unhappily.

_I don’t know how to feel_ , she said.

He put out his hand, and she moved slowly out of the shade to wind around it. He got to his feet and carried her to the bench just inside the greenhouse.

“There,” he said. “No one can overhear us. Say whatever. Don’t try to find the right words, just let everything out. Talking sometimes jogs something loose.”

She hid her head in a fold of his shirt.

“Oi,” he said gently. “Just me, here. We can't work on this till you tell me what you need, yeah?”

Angelica hesitated for a moment, then shifted to her people-shape in his lap. She laid her head on his shoulder, and he put his arms around her.

“Easier this way?”

She nodded against his shoulder.

“It’s… not snakey.”

“I get that.” He lifted a hand and lazily began stroking her hair. She closed her eyes and relaxed into his reassuring presence. “Tummy all right this way?”

“Yes.”

“Good. It never bothered me from one to the other, but you lot are a different caboodle of noodles.”

She giggled.

“No ears or tails stuck in your teeth?”

“Father, no,” she said, laughing.

“Glad to hear it. Digging those out would have been a chore.”

“Father, did you really get squirrel tail fluff stuck in your teeth?”

“Well,” he hedged, drawing out the word and squinting vaguely upward, “it was a long time ago. We’re talking about you, though, spitfire.”

Angelica kicked her feet, watching how they moved through the dappled light.

“I don’t know how to feel,” she said. “I feel queer about that. And about... it.”

“How so?”

“It happened really fast.”

“That can be startling.”

“It was.”

“Who was in charge?”

Angelica cocked her head against her father’s shoulder and looked up at his sharp profile.

“What do you mean? Me, not the, the vole?”

“I mean within you. Snake or Angelica?”

Angelica considered this.

“Snake,” she said. “Was that bad?”

“No. Just important to point out.” Crowley shifted a bit and Angelica sat up to turn toward him and see his face. “You’re a snake, spitfire. That’s how you started. That’s what Azirafather thought you were. That’s the nature part of you. With me so far?”

Angelica nodded.

“Then you started growing and developing, and your awareness evolved to something far beyond what a basic snake would be capable of. And you lot got to the point where you collectively decided to see if you could stop being snakes and be people instead. Which you did. And then Azirafather and I had to teach you what people were like and how to be like them, just as we’d done when you were born as snakes. Except as snakes, you instinctively knew how to drink and bathe and nom delicious teeny mices.”

“So we have two birthdays!”

“Sure. Why not. More cake that way.”

Angelica bounced on his lap, and he tickled her. When she recovered, flushed from giggling, he resettled her on his lap.

“Right, where was I. Teaching you to be a people. You’ve all done very well as people, fast learners. But.” Crowley lifted a warning finger. “Having learned to be people doesn’t erase the snake part of you.”

“Ohhhhh,” Angelica said. “I smelled and felt the vole as a snake, so I _acted_ like a snake.”

“Right. It hasn’t been an issue before, really, because you’ve been in a controlled environment.”

“Except for trips to the park.”

“Yes, _well_ ,” said Crowley. “The less said about stalking songbirds just to upset them the better.”

“The best was Junior jumping out of the bush to scare the ducks,” Angelica said happily.

“That was terrible behaviour and you should never do it where others can see you,” Crowley said. “Never get caught.”

Angelica nodded solemnly.

“Now, how was stalking birds different from the vole? Can you tell me?”

Angelica furrowed her brow and thought very hard.

“We... all decided to scare the birds before we did it?”

“Absolutely bang on. You didn’t plan to go find a snack the other day, did you.”

Angelica shook her head violently. Crowley picked wayward strands of her hair off his face and tucked them back behind her ears.

“There it is. You weren’t in control. You weren’t familiar enough with the environment, and you were blindsided by your nature asserting itself.”

“But Father,” she said, “how do I make it not happen again? I don’t want to have to stay a people all the time.”

“I think it will be easier now, spitfire. You’re more aware of it.”

“How come it didn’t happen to anyone else?”

Crowley sighed and bent forward to rest his forehead against hers, a half-smile on his face.

“You’re very close to your snake nature, you know. The others all have their preferences now that they have the choice, but you’ve always been very snakey regardless of whatever form you’re in. And I don’t mean you behave like a snake when you’re a people. You’re just very comfortable with your snake thoughts and tendencies.”

“What if… what if I don’t want to be?”

He drew back and met her eyes. She was chewing on her lower lip, the dark scale-like smudges on the side of her face very visible against her pale skin.

“Does it bother you?”

She looked down at her lap and shrugged.

“I won’t be offended if you say it does,” he said quietly. “I won’t take it personally, Angelica.”

She didn’t say anything. Crowley sighed and looked up at the sky through the uneven glass of the greenhouse roof.

“I've been trying to come to terms with who I am and my own nature for an awfully long time, spitfire. Azirafather says that we can always choose to be someone different, that our actions define us, not where or what we come from. And he’s right. So you can choose to behave differently as a snake. It will be a challenge, but you can train yourself to overcome instinct.”

Angelica leaned into his chest again, resting her head on his shoulder.

“I didn’t have a problem with it so much when I was a snake,” she said. “I was fine. But after, when I realized what I’d done… it was so cute, and furry, and I felt _awful_.”

He rubbed her back lightly.

“Tell me,” he said. “Those songbirds in the park. Do you get angry at them for eating insects?”

“Of course not,” Angelica scoffed. “Midges are annoying.”

“What about foxes? They eat rabbits.”

“They have to,” Angelica pointed out. “They can’t eat grass or bugs.”

“What about the mice Azirafather and I fed you all those times?”

“They were on plates. That’s _different_.”

“So the part you’re having trouble with isn’t that you ate a sweet, fuzzy vole. It’s that you enjoyed it?”

Angelica turned to hide her face in his shoulder.

“Ah.”

“It’s like enjoying killing a _unicorn_ or something!” she wailed.

“It was hardly the last vole in creation,” Crowley said, fighting a laugh. “I see your analogy, however.”

“People-me hated it! But snake-me loved it! And I don’t know how to--how to--”

“Reconcile the two?” Crowley lifted a hand to stroke her hair, so like his own. “I wish I could snap my fingers and do that for you. But it’s something you need to figure out on your own, spitfire. No amount of arguing or logic on my side is going to magically make you all right with both sides of who you are.”

“But can’t you help?” came the pitiful request from somewhere around his clavicle.

Crowley pulled her a little closer.

“It may just take time, sweetheart.” He rested his cheek on the top of her head and closed his eyes. “We work through emotions by living and having experiences that help us understand more about them.”

They sat quietly for a while. Eventually Angelica huffed an irritated sigh.

“Why doesn’t Clem have this problem?” she said. “He’s a snake and likes being a snake.”

“He’s also a snake who likes his mice on a plate, warmed to a specific temperature, and is horrified at the idea of eating something alive,” Crowley said with a snort. “I don’t think his struggle is with reconciling his snake nature with his people part. I suspect it’s the reverse.”

“The opposite of me?” Angelica said, sitting up again to look at Crowley’s face. He nodded.

“Think about it. Your brother is happiest being a snake, and uncomfortable with legs in general. The only time he’ll shift is if it’s to eat people food that would make him sick as a snake.”

“Like ice cream.” She nodded and began to swing her legs again. 

“No moral issue with eating ice cream,” Crowley agreed. “Compassion doesn’t figure into the equation. Clem also has an advantage in that his parents are people-shaped.”

“You’re a snake,” Angelica objected. Crowley looked at her, eyes wide.

“I’m a _what? Really?_ ”

Angelica chortled, and Crowley stood up, hefting her to lie over his shoulder. She squealed and kicked her feet as he walked out of the greenhouse.

“Think fast, spitfire,” he said. He tossed her gently toward the grass and she shifted into snake form to land. He shifted into snake form as well and flowed swiftly through the grass after her as she slithered away, shrieking with laughter.

If what his daughter needed was some bonding time as snakes, just the two of them, then he was happy to provide it. In a few days he’d take her into the windbreak and give her tips on hunting intentionally, to help her get used to it. The easier it became to act with intention, the easier it would be for her to choose to deny instinctive behaviour.

Right now, however, there was a squealing child to chase.

  
  



End file.
